Independent TD Mattie McGrath has described a decision by the Chairperson of the Citizens Assembly, Justice Mary Laffoy, to allow presentations from two explicitly pro-abortion organisations as deeply misguided and regrettable. Deputy McGrath was speaking as the Assembly prepares to hear contributions from spokespersons representing The Guttmacher Institute as well as BPAS, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service:

“The decision by the Assembly to ask The Guttmacher Institute to present an overview on the availability of legal terminations in other jurisdictions is profoundly problematic.

Guttmacher have long associations with International Planned Parenthood, the world’s largest abortion providers, and have even been described as its research arm.

Indeed in 2012 The Guttmacher Institute was severely criticised when it was found that its calculations of illegal abortions in Mexico were overestimated 10-fold.

I would suggest that this is definitely not the kind of partisan organisation that can be trusted to give a fair and balanced analysis of abortion in other jurisdictions.

When it comes to BPAS the problems are even more significant. This is an organisation that has actively campaigned against the criminalisation of sex-selective abortion.

For BPAS, if a pregnant women wishes to abort her child for the sole reason that it is a girl, then that should be perfectly ok.

Is that the sort of regime we want to introduce into this state; where being the ‘non-preferred’ sex can be seen as a legitimate reason to end a child’s life? Again, I would suggest that the vast majority of Irish people would find that principle absolutely chilling.

The Assembly, by giving a platform to organisations who do not have even the pretence of objectivity or impartiality is incredibly disturbing and will only result in confirming many of us in the belief that it is simply not interested in engaging in a fair analysis of the topic,” concluded Deputy McGrath.

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